Our Story
Carmen and Maja Black are co-owners of Local Harvest CSA! They started working on this farm in 2012 and 2013 respectively for Susan Jutz, founder of Local Harvest CSA. Susan and her family started this CSA in 1996, and it was one of the Community Supported Agriculture businesses in Iowa.
On a hot, August day, Susan and Carmen were harvesting a bumper crop of Cantaloupes, and she shared she was going to retire in a year or two. She said she knew that farming was a long-term goal of Carmen’s, and not something she planned to do immediately, but wanted her to know. Buying a farm was an extremely daunting process, but that conversation really got Carmen thinking
The community of people Susan had built around this farm was already so important to Carmen, and she dreamed of farming someday in the future. So she decided she had to try. It was important to Susan that this land continued to grow food, and to find someone to carry on the CSA. They worked together with the support of both their families and their CSA community for nearly two years to make the farm transition happen. After the transition Susan moved closer to her children, but remains a valued mentor and friend of the farm.
Maja had also been working for Susan for several years, and was graduating from college the spring of the farm transition. Carmen couldn’t imagine embarking on her first year of farming without her. When she came home for spring break Carmen asked her to sign a post-it note contract that they would farm together for at least a year. Susan and their mom made sure she negotiated good terms for herself on the post-it note contract, and she moved onto the farm right after she graduated.
11 years later, they’re now full business partners, and the farm has grown beyond what they could have imagined at the time!
Maja in particular discovered a love for rotational grazing, a land and livestock management practice that promotes biodiversity and soil health while also benefiting the health of the animals. Through the support of neighbors and a couple equipment grants, we’ve been able to expand our sheep flock, goat herd, and the land we manage through grazing.
A few years ago, our neighbors who ran Salt Fork Farm were getting out of farming, so we bought their pastured laying hens operation and started raising our own eggs! We’re so grateful to have had another farm mentor for the egg enterprise, and we love the quality and flavor of the eggs that we can raise.
We saw the decision to raise eggs as a step towards our long-term goal of offering both local food and more on-farm employment year round. Another step towards this goal has been building and licensing a small ‘processing plant’ to freeze and dehydrate vegetables. This project has been equal parts challenging and inspiring, and taught us so much about creating on-farm infrastructure and efficient systems.
Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of employing a lot of interesting and energetic people, who’ve lent their unique talents and passions to the farm during their time here. We’ve learned so much from everyone that’s worked here, and the farm has been shaped by their skills and interests. Some former members of our farm crew have gone on to start their own farms, and one former employee raised pastured chickens on our farm for several years. We bought the chicken business from him when he retired, so now we also raise pastured meat birds.
The experience of employing a lot of young people also demonstrated to us the need for more supportive youth employment opportunities, so we also partner with a local nonprofit to run a summer youth employment program.
All photos on this site were taken by Carmen Black